Latest / Best of Business / Chris Penk: Building and Construction Minister on the Government overhauling insulation regulations to cut costs

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Chris Penk: Building and Construction Minister on the Government overhauling insulation regulations to cut costs · Best of Business

• 0:09
  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from News Talks be follow
• 0:12
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  Speaker 2: The Building and Construction Minister is finally pulling the trigger
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  Speaker 2: on his insulation reform. The insulation requirements in the building
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  Speaker 2: code are going to be made more flexible by the
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  Speaker 2: end of the year. The Minister reckons it'll save the
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  Speaker 2: cost of the average new build buy up to maybe
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  Speaker 2: fifteen thousand dollars. Chris Pink is the Building and Construction
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  Speaker 2: Minister and with us Hey, Chris.
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  Speaker 1: Hey, that how are you so?
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  Speaker 2: And well, thank you? So explain to me how this
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  Speaker 2: would work. Right at the moment, we have like a
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  Speaker 2: standard one size fits all for houses. But you're going
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  Speaker 2: to make this more flexible.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's right. We've got what we call the schedule method,
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  Speaker 3: which sets out in a very prescriptive way all the
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  Speaker 3: different parts of the building that need to be insulated
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  Speaker 3: or double glaze in a certain way. And that adds
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  Speaker 3: a huge amount of costs because in some cases, depending
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  Speaker 3: on where you are in the country, or depending on
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  Speaker 3: what the conditions are or which way your house faces,
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  Speaker 3: you don't need all of that, you just need some
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  Speaker 3: of that. So as long as we can get to
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  Speaker 3: the same good overall result without being so prescripted of
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  Speaker 3: then these money to be saved and homes to be built.
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  Speaker 2: So one of the examples that you used was if
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  Speaker 2: you change the size of the window, it will affect
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  Speaker 2: how much insulation you need. Run me through that.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, well, I mean windows are the most vulnerable part
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  Speaker 3: of the house. You can imagine they leak more hot
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  Speaker 3: air or cool air as the case may be, than
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  Speaker 3: you know, walls and even doors, So you know, changing
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  Speaker 3: that design element will significantly affect how much insulation you
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  Speaker 3: need to have in the walls, or whether a concrete
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  Speaker 3: slab will make any difference, and so on. So the
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  Speaker 3: idea is a bit of give and take and what
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  Speaker 3: are called the calculation or modeling methods. Mean, if you
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  Speaker 3: want bigger windows, that's fine, you might need a bit
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  Speaker 3: more insulation. You've got smaller windows, you might need a
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  Speaker 3: bit less. So it's about not having a one size
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  Speaker 3: fits all because when you're that prescriptive, that's when all
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  Speaker 3: the additional cost comes, and that's what we're trying to
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  Speaker 3: get away from.
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  Speaker 2: And the orientation of the house. So what if you're
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  Speaker 2: north facing less insulation, well.
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  Speaker 3: You get more suns so you know, it depends. Of course,
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  Speaker 3: that's the point about insulation is that it keeps you
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  Speaker 3: wall if these womans inside the house because get this leakage.
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  Speaker 3: But also of course you've got to think about the
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  Speaker 3: way that sunlight can come in and cause more more heat.
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  Speaker 3: So there's a you know, reflective glass called low EG.
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  Speaker 3: So there's lots of different factors and I'm not going
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  Speaker 3: to successfully describe them all, but suffice to say the
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  Speaker 3: design and location, including the location in New Zealand by
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  Speaker 3: the way, Northland being quite different from Southland. Yeah, all
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  Speaker 3: max factor. So if we allow all those to be
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  Speaker 3: taken into account and don't go down the prescriptive path
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  Speaker 3: in again, as I say, you'll get a you actually
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  Speaker 3: get a better result in terms of in terms of
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  Speaker 3: the don't.
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  Speaker 2: We already have zones Chris like, don't we have zones
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  Speaker 2: that that's specified that if you're further south you need
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  Speaker 2: to build build a sturdier house.
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  Speaker 3: To some extent. But but there isn't, for example, a
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  Speaker 3: special zone for Northland that takes into account the difference
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  Speaker 3: you know, how warm they are. So we've actually said
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  Speaker 3: as well that we're looking at and I've asked MB
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  Speaker 3: to look at establishing a whole new separate one for
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  Speaker 3: Northland because up here where I am actually now with
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  Speaker 3: our excellent local MP, Grant McCullum, there's both both, you know,
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  Speaker 3: the lesser requirement for insulation against cold, but actually also
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  Speaker 3: the cost of building is huge and that's obviously a
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  Speaker 3: massive effect for the communities.
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  Speaker 2: And that I was actually talking to Grant just before
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  Speaker 2: when he said that he was with you. What are
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  Speaker 2: you two up.
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  Speaker 3: To visiting a number of small businesses and manufacturing outfits
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  Speaker 3: up here. Actually that's a different minister that ire with
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  Speaker 3: so a lot going on up here, but lots of
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  Speaker 3: challenges and opportunities.
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  Speaker 2: Hey, I have one more question about this though, So
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  Speaker 2: how does this interact what you're doing with new builds?
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  Speaker 2: How does that interact with rentals and healthy home standards?
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  Speaker 2: If you change the standards for new builds, do you
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  Speaker 2: need to change the standards for healthy homes?
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  Speaker 1: No?
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  Speaker 3: Technically separate So actually, and I mean it's a bit crazy.
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  Speaker 3: The systems don't talk to each other. But as off
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  Speaker 3: who you describe on your show in the last couple
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  Speaker 3: of days, many of us are living in homes quite
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  Speaker 3: happily that we wouldn't be able to rent out. Yeah,
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  Speaker 3: circumstances were different, So it's actually a different thing because
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  Speaker 3: you know, that's a provision of a heat punt as
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  Speaker 3: opposed to heaters and so on, whereas this is just
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  Speaker 3: the insulation or energy efficiency.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah cool. Hey, thank you very much. Chris appreciated Chris
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  Speaker 2: pink Building and Construction.
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